SIGNS OF AUGUST (BY JIMINY)

I was thinking a few days ago that I never see a cricket in my house until August. August 1st came and went and I didn't see a cricket. "What the heck is going on?" I thought to myself, "Where are the crickets?".

Well, August 2nd arrived and I spied this cricket on my bathroom floor. I quickly took a picture to commemorate the first cricket of August to visit me this year. How they get in the house I haven't a clue as I don't leave my doors open and I don't send out invitations for the crickets to visit me but somehow they know how to show up each year at about the same day. I just remembered that 2008 was a leap year with an extra day in February so I guess without that extra leap year day this cricket would have arrived on the equivalent day of August 1st. Maybe crickets don't take into account the extra leap year day every four years like we humans so their cricket calendar may be a day behind our human calendar.

I was reading about crickets on the Internet and it is said that some insects in their dried form are said to have twice the protein as meat and other insects have important vitamins and minerals. Maybe the federal government will soon start mandating that people start eating more crickets and other bugs instead of beef as cows are known to emit a lot of flatulent methane gas which is said to contribute to greenhouse gasses and global warming although this year we haven't had a hot summer in New England compared with previous years. Maybe crunching on crickets is already gaining popularity around the world and people are already starting to eat less meat. In Taiwan, stir fried crickets are a delicacy. The government in Thailand encouraged its citizens to eat locusts when pesticides failed to control them and distributed locust recipes (yum,yum).

Perhaps President Obama will encourage Americans to forsake beef and start eating insects as part of his "Change we can believe in" policy to help save the planet.

Crickets are one of my favorite insects and in the Far East crickets have been kept as pets. Crickets can jump up to three feet in height which is quite a feat given their small size. Imagine if a basketball player could jump the equivalent height? A basketball player sized cricket could probably jump about one hundred seventeen feet high. By Jiminy, you would surely need a basketball rim higher than the current ten foot rim in use today.